Joan Jonas 喬安·喬納斯

Tate Modern

14 March-5 August 2018

Joan Jonas – The Mirror Pieces II

Tate Modern presents the largest survey of Joan Jonas’s work ever held ini the UK. Jonas is regarded as a pre-eminent figure in contemporary performance who continues to influence a younger generation of artists. This immersive exhibition celebrates Joan Jonas’s art works over the last five decades, uniting some of the most important pieces from throughout her career. Early and late works are displayed alongside one another, reflecting Jonas’s practice of revisiting her own past, as can be seen in Juniper Treean installation created in 1994 that evolved from performances staged in 1976 and 1978. Early works include the iconic video Organic Honey’s Visual Telepathy 1972 which explores female identity via the artist’s sexualised alter-ego, while recent installation include Reanimation 2010/13 and Stream or River, Flight or Pattern 2016-17 which broach the issues of climate change and animal extinction-subjects that are central to Jonas’s current practice.

Jonas originally trained as a sculptor but quickly began experimenting with performance, video and props after meeting influential choreographers Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer in the 1960s. Her revolutionary early practice in New York’s downtown arts scene would inspire Peter Moore and Larry Bell illustrates this seminal moment in modern art history. Tate Modern also reveals a range of important items from Jonas’s personal collections, such as masks, wooden animals and items collected on her travels, which have inspired or featured in her work.

The exhibition explores key elements of Joans’s practice, from her use of sound to the influence of Japanese Noh theatre on her work. Her passion for story telling is evident in works such as Double Lunar Rabbits 2010, in which Jonas draws inspiration from the story of a rabbit on the moon, both a well-known Japanese myth and Aztec fable. In Lines in the Sand 2002, an installation and performance created for Documenta 11, Jonas reworks the myth of Helen of Troy in order to explore contemporary political evens.

Reflecting the way Jonas works across many different disciplines, this groundbreaking survey is the first of its kind at Tate, combing a gallery exhibition, a ten day live programme in the Tanks with performances by Jonas herself, and a film retropective in the Starr Cinema. It reveals her powerful impact on contemporary art and her dedication to pushing boundaries to this day.